Thursday, November 12, 2009

At a recent ward conference, a member of the Stake Presidency mentioned in his talk this cartoon from my youth. I loved this cartoon as a kid. I got scared out of my wits when I saw the wolf from it in my room one night. No, seriously. It. was. there.

After sifting through all our costume boxes we finally found enough stuff to make costumes and not have to spend a penny. Anything we didn't have, we made quickly. Austin, Thomas, and Emma chose to be Revolutionary War period characters. Audrey wanted to be a "50's person". She was going for the sock hop look, with the oversized white dress shirt, the rolled up jeans, and the scarf ponytail. Henry got to be the only costume that fit....a lion, without the customary tail, though. I so don't know where that dang tail is.

Here are some pics from the night of the Primary Halloween party:Give Austin a toy gun and he will point it at somebody. Anybody. Everybody.

Here, Austin is demonstrating the famous colonial "rabbit ears" pose.

Yes, I know, Thomas. I'm not very funny.Amazing what you can do with a red SharpieEmma is wearing her great-grandmother's shawl to complete her ensemble.

So Reilly is a lamb, and Henry is a lion..............get it, the lamb and the lion? We so planned that in advance (not)

Okay, another cake post. I made this cake for my nephew Spenser's 8th birthday. This was my first time doing a "vertical" cake. I was pretty nervous about it being secure and about it actually being recognizable. I found a photo of a wonderful R2D2 cake online, and tried my best to copy it. It's not nearly as nice as the original, but it turned out pretty good.

The main body of R2 is cake, buttercream, fondant. The legs and feet are made from Rice Krispie treat, buttercream, fondant. The legs are a little too big for R2, but let's just say he's been working out a lot lately.

My friend asked me to make her sister's baby shower cake. Since the mama-to-be is a University of Florida fan, it had to have an alligator on it. And it had to have the baby's name on it (Lincoln). Gannon and Maghen (my friend and her sister) both were able to give me some direction in what was wanted, but there was quite a bit of decision-making left to me. That was a bit of a challenge, but I finally came up with a design I liked. Maghen really liked the cake, and her guests all enjoyed the all chocolate treat.

It was a 2-tier cake with buttermilk chocolate cake layers filled with chocolate ganache and frosted in chocolate buttercream and then covered in fondant (all from scratch except cake, which was a doctored cake mix recipe). Even with all the work I did ahead of time to try to make the actual cake-decorating day less chaotic, I was still scrambling to get it done and had to get Audrey to help me with some of the fondant work. My stripes are a little wonky, I mean, purposely curvy. But I was happy with the end result.

My favorite part is, of course, the little gator. I sculpted him first, because he was the hardest part. But I had so much fun making him that I completely lost track of time. I was just in my own little world with that guy and before I knew it, I was WAY over on my time plan. Anyway, here's the cake. It's one of my faves so far.

Thanks to Audrey for helping me finish it, and for taking all the photos for me.

He has a little pacifier in his mouth and a "Go Gators" bib. The baby block has an "L" for Lincoln, an "M" for Maghen, a "J" for Josh (the dad), an "O" for Maghen's maiden name, and an "S" for their last name.

He is holding a University of Florida flag in his tail.

Gannon told me Maghen liked argyle so I added that to the bottom tier.

I love American history, especially the Revolutionary War period. I love the Founding Fathers. So I was thrilled to get to this time period in our history studies. Each of the moms in our co-op specialized in a certain category, and presented each week for four weeks. I had battles/action, my sister Amy had biographies, and our friend Jennie had government. Things are always so busy, I never seem to remember to take photos. But I was able to snap a few from one of the days we met at our house. Jennie brought batting for us to make some quick wigs. (This was from October 15.)

Well, it's been quite a while since I've been able to blog anything. Life has been crazy busy, and I'm been trying my darnedest to stay with our routine and be as productive as possible. I guess that meant that blogging took a back seat. But it's a rainy, blustery day today (as the remnants of this hurricane blow through....that kept me up half the night last night with howling winds) so I thought I'd take some time to catch you all up on the stuff we've been up to lately.

And just so you know how much I care about you, I am foregoing what could have been the world's juiciest nap. Ever.

Let's use this first "catch up" post to let you see Henry's new (well, not so new anymore...October 9th) hairdo:

I. am. so. cool.

A little mohawk action goin' on

Yeah. I don't even know what to say about this one.

Considering it took about an hour, several handfuls of marshmallows and chocolate chips, and a daddy to hold his arms down, I don't think we'll be attempting any more haircuts for a little while.